Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

News from outside the USA ... and Happy New Year

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You're right ukpokemonpro ... look at my post saying that we'll know in March if POP in Europe has completely failed or not.
The ball is in PUI/Distributor's hands, it's their responsibility.
We'll see what we'll have to conclude, but even the best promises seem to be worse than expected; prereleases, leagues or invitation only qualifiers for example.


Tego, sometimes you write funny things ;)
If a distributor can't run a league and tournaments, will he run Nationals, even if the weather is better ?
Or it's maybe a new strategy ... Nationals without OP.
What's the first thing you need for a main event ? PLAYERS !
New players without leagues ? Competitive players without tournaments ?
Funny ? Actually not :mad:

If PUI is doing his job well, if they really try to start POP in Europe since the meeting in Barcelona, the behavior of some distributors is a total lack of respect towards the players in their country.
And I consider that what happens in Europe now is not only a lack of respect towards the players, but towards all the people (TO's, judges, gym leaders, shops, ...) who have been involved in Pokemon for such a long time.
But don't worry, products are on sale. Easier to get boxes to put in the shops than league kits or POP material for the players.
Oups, sorry, now I remember where the money comes from :rolleyes:
 
I can't see what was funny about my post. All I said was that it's up to each distributor when their National Qualifier is. That's all I said, and it's true. =\
 
Funny to read that here in Belgium Tego.
I read about Worlds, Nationals, International POP, Prereleases, Leagues, Promos, ...

Sure you're true when you say it's a decision of the national distributor. But reading all these things when the distributor chosen by PUI seems to have completely forgotten Pokemon, when absolutely nothing is said by the people who are paid for it in Belgium (and in other countries too) is 'funny'.

I live in the country that has had the most winners at qualifiers in Europe, players at each STS/Worlds. It's the only European country with a STS winner, the only one who sent 3 players at the TMB and made 1st and 3d, and also 3d at the adult event at the TMB. We had leagues all over the country, tournaments almost every week, ...
Not such a long time ago, but it seems to be in another life.

Look at the website of the distributor ... you'll find info about BattleZone ! And it's not the only country in Europe !
 
Well blow me down with a feather... On Friday last week I had a frank conversation by phone with Renee from PUI.

We spoke at some length about the pre-releases for Europe and I impressed on him how important we all thought it was to have simulataneous pre-releases as well as simultaneous releases. I even went so far as to tell him that with the state of the dollar as it is now without pre-releases the next set would be likely to sit on the national distributors shelves whilst we all grey imported.

And he listened and said they would talk about it and get back to us in a few weeks. Now I am not one to let a week slip by when we could be doing not talking and again I impressed upon him the realities of trying to organise and advertise events when you do not know if you will get the product in time :(

He listened and politely repeated that they would talk about it with the UKs OP provider The Place for Games.

And they have, Renee listened and actioned :) Today The Place for Games confirmed that the card stock for the 3 UK pre-releases will be in the UK by the 4th of March and will therefore be available for the planned pre-releases on the 6th March!

Now what the situation is for the rest of Europe I do not know but I did fight for all of us outside the US not just the UK so maybe your distributors can offer the same to you?

I urge you all to check with them, cajoul them and above all keep campaigning.

Pokemon TCG not just for the YANKS! But for us Limeys too .. :)
 
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Great you have contact with PUI, for us they don't even answer our emails.

We are not asked to organize any tournament and we know someone who is only doing Unlimited tournaments with Wizards rules is asked to do a City tournament.

So meaby there will be a prerelease overhere I don't know.
I better show up in the UK if I want to play a fair well judged prerelease.
 
Hey, I realize this is rather late and perhaps a futile thought, but you are all invited to come to my City Championship tournament on Feb 7th. I'll even greet you at the airport if you seriously would like to come.
 
Wrong date, otherwise I should serious consider flying over.
But in this case I have to leave on feb 6 to be in time and that's my sons birthday, which I would mis than( he will never forgive me that).

If you are organising the Nationals for Canada and these are open for Non-Canadian let me know. My whole family lives up there, so than it will be time for familyvisit.
 
Rainbowgym we'll be very happy to see you if you can make it :) Note I phoned PUI not email as we too were suffering the no responses problem :(

I hope that you can get your issues with the distributor and PUI resolved the game needs commitment like you have shown.

But we'd still like to see ya at our pre-release on the 6th March
 
:thumb: Good job Ben :thumb:

So, if I understand what you say, PUI can send material on time for prereleases and it now depends on the local distributor to have prereleases in the country or not.

IOW, if people are willing to run them but have no material and/or support, it's only the distributor's fault.

If that is true, each of us in our respective countries know where to go and what to do :D
 
News from Italy:

on the distribtor's website, they wrote that League officially starts for Italy February, 1st. At the end of January though, 1st release in italian of Ex: R/S.
Then, I immediately wrote to the OP manager. But, 1 wrote approx. 1 week ago... and no answers. I hope he is too busy to answer, cause I don't want to restart that long and boring shouting as I did the last time...
Waiting for some news about prereleases too, and City Championships, and so on. If in december they didn't have so much infos, now details are surely be finalized with them, and we would know what we can do.
Last thing, I saw in december the distributor's file about Pokémon (it was the Barcelona meeting's file), with the list of profs, some papers, and the TO applications from PUI. But, now in January, neither TO applied is registered on the site = the distributor doesn't have authorized anyone as TO. Why? Lack of time? mhmmm...
 
Rainbowgym said:
Wrong date, otherwise I should serious consider flying over.
But in this case I have to leave on feb 6 to be in time and that's my sons birthday, which I would mis than( he will never forgive me that).
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Too bad, I would be thrilled to meet you and your family. And anyone else from this board actually.

Rainbowgym said:
If you are organising the Nationals for Canada and these are open for Non-Canadian let me know. My whole family lives up there, so than it will be time for familyvisit.
Click to expand...

I highly doubt they'd pick me, but we can dream can't we? I'll keep you informed anyways. By the way, where does your family live roughly? Canada covers a lot of ground.
 
News from Italy:

on the distribtor's website, they wrote that League officially starts for Italy February, 1st. At the end of January though, 1st release in italian of Ex: R/S.
Then, I immediately wrote to the OP manager. But, 1 wrote approx. 1 week ago... and no answers. I hope he is too busy to answer, cause I don't want to restart that long and boring shouting as I did the last time...
Click to expand...

It seems to me that there are communications issues all over the place here, I suspect that for the distributors emails and letters may get lost in the general clutter and the same is probably true at PUI only more so due to volumns. My best advice to you is to phone, they have to at least acknowledge you're there on the phone and you can also guage their mood better.

Certainly it seems that email and letter maybe easily forgotten but the guy and gal on the end of the phone cannot be ignored? It seems that if we are not careful Italy will not only not start OP and Leagues on time but may miss out on pre-releases too?

Waiting for some news about prereleases too, and City Championships, and so on. If in december they didn't have so much infos, now details are surely be finalized with them, and we would know what we can do.
Click to expand...

Ah yes the dreaded City Championships and Nationals ... I still personally think this is lets run and fall over and really hurt ourselves before we try to learn to walk! I don't know about the rest of Europe but in the UK we have a a couple of new leagues coming on line, introduced to the distributors OP reps through our SE Challenge Series, this site and the coverage we get for our events in Pokemon World Magazine.

What we have not seen so far is a list of non-US leagues easily accessable on the Pokemon-TCG website.. you need a POP id to find them and can't get a POP id until you know where a league is first? There has also been no advertising in Magazines that target the right age group so far and yet we know in the UK a full page ad in Pokemon World Magazine can be had for £750 about $1300 and would get us in front of 30,000 Pokemon Fans. To my mind the UK pre-releases should be in the February issue but for that to happen they need to place the advert NOW!

I don't know if this is what is happening in the rest of the world outside the US but we are seeing no adverts, no listings of leagues, no push to grow the game... and that will mean Nationals, City Championships and Pre-releases that do nothing other than leech money out of the game and provide no real growth. They will spend loads of cash on a big venue and won't get the players because only the 100 or so die hard fans wil know about it and that only because we have our own communication network in place.

Last thing, I saw in december the distributor's file about Pokémon (it was the Barcelona meeting's file), with the list of profs, some papers, and the TO applications from PUI. But, now in January, neither TO applied is registered on the site = the distributor doesn't have authorized anyone as TO. Why? Lack of time? mhmmm...
Click to expand...

The use of distributors to grow the game is proving to be a mistake it seems, there is no commitment to it, no time or effort going into growth and the only real movemnet is to waste money on a big event that will not be advertised and certainly will not be well attended.

Here in the UK we are lucky that Freddy writes for Pokemon World and on the back of that we have seen some small growth in the game and the UK player base but we cannot rely on free advertising for ever.
So we have to push PUI and the distributors to advertise, we need to push PUI and the distributors to grow league play first before trying to run with City Champinships and we need to scale down the big tourneys for more realistic use of any budgets.

That doesn't mean there should not be Nationals in each country ... just that before you go and blow $20,000 on a venue hadn't you better advertise it first? Tell people how they qualify and make sure your 300 player tourney has 300 players that can attend?

Pokemon TCG needs investment to grow and needs it carefully managed to avoid the big pointless splash. After all you can dynamite the tree in the forest but if there is no-one there to catch the shrapnel what's the point? ;)
 
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Michel said:
Funny to read that here in Belgium Tego.
I read about Worlds, Nationals, International POP, Prereleases, Leagues, Promos, ...

Sure you're true when you say it's a decision of the national distributor. But reading all these things when the distributor chosen by PUI seems to have completely forgotten Pokemon, when absolutely nothing is said by the people who are paid for it in Belgium (and in other countries too) is 'funny'.

I live in the country that has had the most winners at qualifiers in Europe, players at each STS/Worlds. It's the only European country with a STS winner, the only one who sent 3 players at the TMB and made 1st and 3d, and also 3d at the adult event at the TMB. We had leagues all over the country, tournaments almost every week, ...
Not such a long time ago, but it seems to be in another life.

Look at the website of the distributor ... you'll find info about BattleZone ! And it's not the only country in Europe !
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I completely understand you Michel, and the situation worries me. I said it's up the distributor - and that's the problem. The distributors are the problem. Something has to be done, because it really seems that the distributor plan is failing. PUI should force distributors more into doing what they should, but more importantly: PUI should start to inform their distributors better. Everyone at Nintendo of Norway get a tiny bit of info from PUI, but most of the important information they get through me and my experience and interest in the game.
 
Forcing any company is not leading to sollutions.
Point is if Distributors were really interested in OP, they already went to the .TCG website to find info.
Just sit on your but and wait untill everything gets delivered to you results in the recent situation.

That's what happening, you can say PUI has to give distributors more info, but there is another side so distributors also could ask and search for info.
If we can find it, they should.

Point is Pokemon TCG survived in Europe because of those few really interested people, now those people are ignored (at least overhere) in a terrible way.

For example - Distributor is looking for TO's for City tournaments (no subcriptions like in the USA)and quess who they didn't approach.
Yes, the only 3 active Pokemonclubleaders and TO's which are still doing large tournaments.
I know we are not the ones who make the decissions, but ignoring TO's from the first hour who are familair with floorrules recent playingrules etc. is another step downhill.

Words from the Distributor after a phonecall (not made by me). we don't want to work with those people, we better do tournaments without Judges, Profs.
Situation is going to be worse, how will a National be to play at, without experienced judges. With people buying starterdecks at the door and playing in this tournament.
For real dedicated players is this a disaster, but who cares.

We care but nobody is listening.
 
Rainbowgym said:
Forcing any company is not leading to sollutions.
Point is if Distributors were really interested in OP, they already went to the .TCG website to find info.
Just sit on your but and wait untill everything gets delivered to you results in the recent situation.
Click to expand...

But what if a distributor isn't interested in OP because they simply don't know enough about it, all the benefits of giving your costumers OP? And what if don't know about the TCG website? I think the distributors need more information. But most importantly, they need a push to start their OP, and I wouldn't mind if they were "forced".
 
Mhmm I don't know if it's good or bad news... but I tried to phone to our Distributor Nexus, asking for the OP manager... and they told be that it was out to do a lot of things (about work), and that he was out for the day.
As he only work with Pokémon now (first he was involved with WizKids and various miniatures), he was surely out for Pokémon OP... I'll try today to call him.

In any case, you're right: distributors need more information from PUI. They have only basics infos, often we know more than them, and it's no simple to work when you don't even know what kind of support you will have to order, or which events you'll have to run.
 
It's so simple, just ask the people who are involved for years for help and listen to them.
But by asking help you admit your own mis-knowledge (don't know the word) and that's the point.

That's the whole issue, distributor prefer to have no OP than admit that this is going above their knowlede.


We offered help, but are ignored.
Michel from Belgium offered help also ignored.
Glumanda from Germany offered help and it looks like there are listening ears, same appears for the UK.

Latest news, someone is asked to organize a City tournament.
This person didn't know that the format is Constructed Modified and asked what's E-on.
He thought he could do an Unlimited tournament with Wizard rules.

this is what is happening when you pass, ignore your skilled TO's, Judges.
 
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